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Study Claims Men Play Female Avatars to 'Win'
mytrip writes to mention a News.com article about the rationale behind male players playing female avatars in online games. The article says that, while some players are probably exploring 'gender roles, many just want free stuff. From the article: "Kathryn Wright, WomenGamers's consulting psychologist, earlier this decade found that 60 percent of male players who don female avatars, or on-screen personas, do it to gain an advantage in game play. An enthusiast with the online handle Jackpot649 nailed the zeitgeist in his response to the About.com query: 'I'm a guy, but if I gotta look at an avatar all day, I'd sooner look at a female avatar. Plus, people give you more free stuff.'"
Autogynephilia
On SA, there is a column, "Art of Warcraft." Recently, one of the editors has been posing as a female character not only to get massive amounts of gold, but also for the simple pleasure of humiliating gamers.
See Part 1 and Part 2.
I have freaks! I did something right...
this is a pretty simple logical syllogism, I'm not sure anyone didn't know this. A) there are people who will give in-game items to female avatars as a way of flirting B) there are other people who do anything possible for an ingame advantage C) free in-game items are an in-game advantage Ergo: people, males and females, will play female avatars in order to gain a playing advantage. what a shocker.
Its been going on in Chat for ages.
Men like to look at female avtars. Whats new?
Wincopy
i for one welcome our gender bending.... *sigh* (you can fill in the rest)
-or-
1. sign up for online game
2. assume female identity
3. ??
4. profit
-or-
in soviet russia, female avatars play games as you
-or-
well... you get picture....
I give free stuff to people occasionally, but I don't think I've ever given something to a player because of their onscreen gender. I happen to know one of the people I regularly game with is a guy who plays female avatars, and probably a good percentage of the other 'women' I game with are really men. So, I really don't give a crap about someone's gender in game, because chances are, they aren't what their character is anyhow.
My Credo - I play games to have fun, not to meet girls. Doesn't mean I'll never meet a girl in game, I just don't *try* to meet any girls in game. Put another way, I just try to treat everyone equally - all with respect, and trying to be the best teammate I can if I team with them, and I form friendships without caring the gender of the person. I suppose in the process of that, some of the people I become friends with will be female, and some male.
The reason I mention this is, from time to time you see 'articles' on the internet about people who've met wives/husbands through an online game. While I'm sure this has happened occasionally, these 'articles' seem to be more marketting vehicles for the game in question than anything else. Someone who goes into the game trying to find a girlfriend (girls looking for guys would probably have a reasonable level of success finding guys - but maybe not guys they would really like, I dunno) is probably going to open themselves up to foolishness like giving gifts to impress a girl that is really a guy.
People even do this on text based mu*s. It's got to be nearly as old as the internet.
You could almost say this is a step towards equality though it's inequality in exploiting uncomfortable (if true) gender stereotypes.
I guess the only question left is whether women playing men are more likely to give stuff to female characters.
And let's admit it, men like to control women, weather they be digital or real. Games just makes it easier for men to control beautiful women.
A blog about stuff.
Are these people crazy, flirting with/giving gifts to those with female chars? Is there some slight chance there gonna get them to take off there Armor and /sleep with them?
If you want to find rendered nudeness there's far better ways than through MMOs
Shameless plugs and inaccessible site design FTW! - www.mistletoestreetmusic.com
For many in the non-stop-gaming demographic, a female avator is the closest they'll come to having any personal influence over where, and up to what, a relatively large pair of breasts will be.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I'm a man. I play female characters because I wish I were female, and get no other chance to express myself. I don't do raids in WoW because of Ventrilo.
but if I gotta look at an avatar all day, I'd sooner look at a female avatar.
That's the beginning and end of it for me. I don't consider myself to be the characters I play. I'm more of a puppeteer pulling the strings.
when I see people in the games I play, if they happen to have a female-ish name, I always give them the same thing - a clip of hot lead.
Stuff that matters.
I've read this article, or similar probably a good dozen times. Why is this such a popular discussion? Is there some sort of stigma attached to a male roleplaying a female character that I'm unaware of? I've been playing MMO's for over five years, and in all of my experience I've never had a big-chested mage ask me for free items on the premise that they're female. It's always the female avatars going, "sup, wanna hunt?" and you immediately know their gender. Alternatively, "ekek ^^; brb my sis wants on the pc", you know it's female. There's really know question involved.
Besides, who the hell cares?
It's a stupid stupid stupid thing to "research" in my oppinion.
Feel free to tell me I'm wrong.
126 Battle Mage - Asheron's Call - Male
99 Ranger - NexusTK - Male
60 Rogue - World of Warcraft - Female
50 Shaman - DAOC - Female
Me - Male
I play entropia universe and it seems as though most people I have come in contact with stick with their natural gender identity. I also found out that one female avatar was actually a dude and everyone I know in-game thought it was creepy. Then again it is way more economical in entropia to be female because clothing and armor is much cheaper. So if i were to ever create a female avatar I wouldn't be running around with a frity name like daisy-sunshine, but instead I'd go for something more macho as to not deceive anyone.
In WOW that's exactly why I played female characters, and it works.
I also had female friends who would play as male characters just so they wouldn't have to deal with guys flirting with them.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
Spin my nipple nuts and call me Sally.
eTrade SUCKS
Yes, the concept isn't new, but the interesting part of the study is the numbers. The article claims that 60% of males using female avatars are attempting to gain some sort of an advantage.
Not only is that way higher than I would have expected; it's also far more than the number of players-with-female-avatars actually claiming to be female. In my own experience, the majority of 'females' will quickly admit to being male even without being asked; often with some bullshit defensive story about preferring to look at female characters' backsides. Even assuming that there are no real girls at all, that still doesn't tally with the study's findings.
Perhaps my own experience is atypical, but from my point of view the results still seem a bit fishy.
This should be no surprise. About half a year ago I went to one of the BarCamp gatherings where a couple of people presented the results of their study of MySpace, where they found similar behaviour. But they found a lot of other interesting stuff. Here is the link: http://ejohn.org/blog/tags/barcamp/ (there is some actual code there) - scroll down to "Presentation 2: Subverting Social Networks (4:45pm, Sunday)" or just hit the slides directly: http://ejohn.org/files/social.pdf .
Simpy
That's what MMORPG is:
Many
Men
Online
Role
Playing
Girls
WoW has absolutely no gameplay difference between male and female. The stats and items are identical for both genders. Men can even wear the item "White Wedding Dress". =)
/kiss /flirt etc. to either gender no matter yours.
You can also
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
I mean, is there anyone who wasn't already aware of this?
Sounds like someone's projecting.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
You mean you are a guy daisy-sunshine?! oh my god! You fooled me!
Nah, but the chick models in AQ2 were skinny and harder to aim at than the guy models.
M0571y H@rml355.
I tend to pick from both, more on such basic premises as to what fits the character... for example fighter, ranger and paladin are always male... don't know why, but women in heavy armor just doesn't snap. I do prefer sorceresses over sorcerors/mages, I suppose mostly for the thought of a timid little woman kicking major ass. Necros are male tho, dunno why but a female necros creep me out more. Women can be warriors though, but then barberian (amazons) or assassins. And any dwarf in an RPG is male, sexist as it might be but the female dwarfes stay at home. Healers/Clerics/Priests can be both. About the avatar: Seriously, get a life. Or even a porn movie.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Can anyone give me the link to the government website dedicated to giving out grants to useless studies? I have a few ideas that could make me rich.
That's interesting. A friend of mine and his wife switch - his avatar is female and hers male. It's funny to hear her tell her hubby "Hay hon, shake your ass a little. (he does) She giggles "Isn't that cute?"
I played WOW until 60. My policy was exactly don't ask don't tell. That's why I hate using things like ventrilo because then you hear the big raspy voice coming out of that hot looking priest avatar. But in end game at lev 60, if you want to do raids, you have no choice (ventrilo becomes very useful) and that's when you realize how many women are not women :). I admit that instinctively I felt compelled to help and protect the chicks avatars even if I knew that there was a good chance that she was a dude. Still, personally, I would not be able to play a women. I like role playing and when I was playing it was a total immersion for me and taking the role of a girl is not my thing. No matter the reward. Why? because I am a man man!
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
Female players have been known to play male characters to avoid being hit on. Who wants to be hit on in a game while in the middle of a battle?
\
So what about us gals that have male avatars on games? Where's our study? Actually, I've only ever played one male character in an online rpg. But, I would like to say that in GemStone IV, I have been playing female characters (and am female) for over 10 years, and in my personal experience, I've only had one character (and it was recently) who benefitted from the "female factor" of having loot thrown upon her, although it wasn't for any flirtations. I don't have any experience with WoW and other newer graphic MMORPG's, though. GemStone IV generally attracts an older crowd as a text-based MMORPG than the newer graphical ones.
-Kinsey
I've heard of people acting like bitches when they loose, but this is rediculas !
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I mean, who doesn't think those Tauren women are hot? Are you with me? Guys?
Does it work with Orc and Undead females, or just the pretty ones like Human and Night Elves? Something interesting the study should have explored.
My alliance characters are all female because quite frankly, I would rather spend my time looking at a pleasing female form. But contrast that with my horde characters, they're all male. I wonder what that means....other than I spend way too much time playing that silly game.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
i did this in city of heroes and was given tons of power ups all the time. it isn't a big secret, 99% of females you see in online games are guarentee'd to be male.
Don't be so ignorant. There are a lot of games where you're stuck with what your character looks like for a potentially long time. Since I have a choice, I don't pick the often fugly males. I don't know where you pulled your idea out of, but basing your opinion of everyone on a stereotype can be pretty offensive.
I played WoW for about a year and a half, as a female avatar, building a guild from the ground up. Believe it or not most the free crap you get is in the form of help, at best, but on the same hand many people will doubt your abilities as a player being "good".
It's a mind bender; for example when MC was the only raid instance out other then Onyxia, I played on my character and used Vent to direct the raid. The raid followed without question. When I went back to being voiceless female, however, the same people doubted the stragities I provided, being the -exact- same person, with the exact same stragities. They also said the "Male" persona was a better player, knowing how to tank and whatnot properly, when again it was still me all along.
Sexism, is very much alive and well, in and outside of games.
Whatever, there are no women on teh intarweb.
Unreal Tournament always had huge bulking guys, while the female avatars were the size of their forearm. Less to aim at (even if where you hit wasn't entirely based off of what was on the screen) the more you'll try and fail to shoot at the person. I can see how this might also apply for other games, but I cant see the people playing MMORPGs giving free stuff to "girls", that just seems very 4th grade to me.
but if I gotta look at an avatar all day, I'd sooner look at a female avatar.
Reminds me of a saying by Steve Martin: "I would make a terrible chick because I would do nothing but play with my breasts all day." (paraphrased)
Table-ized A.I.
I met someone on WoW who said he picked a female character for a slight upper hand in PvP; his character was created and leveled up to 60 for the sole purpose of PvP and hitting High Warlord, so he picked a female Tauren Shaman because he said they're harder to target compared to a male Tauren, because of the size difference. (He hated Orcs, so he didn't pick an Orc female to be a Shaman) Unfortunantly I myself picked a male Human. What a horrible choice. I should have rolled Gnome.
Sigs are overrated.
If a good-aligned female character (non-lawful, I asume) talks to the streetwalker in Neverwinter nights, she can get some information. If a male character talks to her, he gets solicited. Oh yes, and Chun-Li is very fast and has long reach with kicks.
The Internet:
Where the men are men,
the women are men,
and the 16 year old girls are FBI agents.
I just thought it was for the (remote) possibility of a little hot simulated girl-on-girl action. ;)
-Tony
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Females that play ussualy have a char name like axesmasher or some other
masculine based name because they are not playing it to flirt they are playing it to kill stuff.
The men that play females have a name like mistysunshine cause ethey are playing it to flirt.
I'm a furry. And yes, I play a female character!
I almost always play females or halflings, I just don't find the huge male characters appealing, infact I can't stand them personally.
I've only ever been flirted with once and "put your cock away we're questing" shut him up nicely.
Giving items to me? WTF? Me and my friends always share items around, if we find newbie stuff which would be useful to people but not worth much we'll goto the newbie areas and give it out. Gender only matters if you make it matter, I personally don't.
I like muppets.
Alot of us used to play Quake II with the CrackWhore skin because they were smaller, therefore harder to hit. TFA doesn't appear to cover real reasons like this by focusing more on the more recent gaming types and styles than on the real history and causes behind their topic of research.
It took them that long to figure this out...
Ever get the feeling that the people who don't have anything to say are the ones doing the majority of the talking?
Does that means that i'm really unlucky?
:P
cuz i've played a lot with a female avatar and never got anything free from it...
must be that the people i meet are just that cheap
Thank you, I will be here all day.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
People who complain about stereotypes are always prissy whiners.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
This is true in real life too.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
(there can be no text.)
when it's all about hack and slash and well rounded groups, you the player have skillz, your toons are just tools.
there are RP servers are for people who want to be the characters, but they never seem as popular.... i think people outside the mmo circle (reporters at cnn) don't really get that. they envision a buch of LARP geeks twiddling foam battleaxes in a dark basement somewhere.
They make female avatars because they want to be treated like a real lady.
MMORPG = Many Men Online Role-Playing Girls?
You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.
Why don't you start with Jesseca Meron?
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Coming from the world of online poker : choose a nickname that will angry people, like "ILoveGWBush". That and a female avatar, and people will make plenty of dumb moves against you.
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
I'll tell you this, there are NOT as many girls on these games as you might think. Heck, on Guild Wars it's impossible to make an unnatractive girl. Most of the time I personally stick to my gender out of honesty, but once in City of Heroes I made a very hot redhead. Believe me, people were rediculously nice. That always amuses me.
I play female avatars because I don't want to stare at a guys butt all the time.
This is World of Warcraft we're talking about. The home of the ugliest male characters in any computer game since the Sinclair ZX80 port of Dig Dug. Why do people have to trot out the old "Durrr... it's because people give girls stuff!" argument when all they have to do is look at the character creation screen to see why many people choose female characters?
I agree. Honestly, when I used to play PSO, I generally preferred using female characters, as their character models are generally more interesting to look at. The guys look like complete douchebags.
First of all, who gives items away in game simply because the character standing before them is female? That's just stupid. Secondly, I've leveled male and female characters to level 60 in World of Warcraft (Amazingly I still find time to work and have a family life, imagine that. Stereotype destroyed.) No one has ever given me anything based on my avatar's gender and I would never expect anyone to be stupid enough to do so.
You want free stuff? Roll a dwarf priest.
In online games Chuck Norris doesn't play female avatars to get free stuff. Female avatars give free stuff to Chuck Norris!
As a red blooded chauvinistic pig of a male, I play female characters when then look hot.
It must be a control thing...
That's right, Lara, jump up and down a bit more, facing towards me...
Perhaps it's simply because Male Avatars are invariably hulking tanks who haven't shaven in a month?
I've yet to see a single male avatar who doesn't look dreadful.
Try to find out more about the "feminization of nature". But on the other hand we are just the useful idiots, aren't we?
I think the people who help women or female avatars are idiots who deserve to be pummeled into the ground. They're perpetuating the system of fake prostitution. Why should a woman be given gifts just because she is a woman?
Not only that, even after they find out the person running it is a guy, they still give stuff to him. WTF???
Maybe the reason is as simple as "Female avatars are easy on the eyes."?
Webguy at work does the same thing playing UT. He claims that since the female skins are skinner than the other skins they are harder to hit.
Doesn't matter much he still dies quickly anyway.
Aim for the boobs.
Both online (although I tend to only play FPSs online) and in single player games.
I'm not trying to get free stuff, or explore gender roles, or anything like that.
I do it because it's a game - a work of fantasy. In real life, I'm a human male computer programmer. If, in the game, I'm changing my job and quite possibly my species, why not change my gender as well?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Wanna cyber?
.
(j/k)
... it's sure a hell of a lot easier than actually going outside and finding a real girlfriend.
Back when BBS's started becoming popular (with the availability of cheap computers like the Atari 800 and Comodore) the rarity of females meant that any female was automaticaly given special priveleges. Sysops would ask to verify by talking on the phone to make sure the girl was real. Which of course is where your sister comes in handy.
Anyway, I remember getting access to higher level 'g-files' as well as increased quotas using this.
----
And lets be honest. They did not design the nightelf to actually bounce up and down shaking her breasts in the character selection screen because they were trying to get girls to play them.
I don't understand why people even put so much weight in an avatar gender. I CRPG as both just to make things less boring. If I've played 2 men before, maybe it's time to just make a female character for the heck of it. I've also heard female gamers that play as male ones to not grab annoying attention (it's not all about gifts). With everything taken together -- men playing as women just for a change, women playing as men just for a change, women playing as men to blend in and grab less attention among guys in puberty, men playing as women to try get more gifts, why don't people then understand that avatars are a wildly inaccurate way of seeing the person behind the avatar? Computer (MMO)RPG's are also a way to escape reality for many; ponder that a while, and the realism of gender roles in a game.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
if I gotta look at an avatar all day, I'd sooner look at a female avatar.
And the outfits are SO much cuter!
who gives items away in game simply because the character standing before them is female? That's just stupid
Stupid, yes. Which many men online are.
This isn't a new phenomenon at all, and it extends well beyond some valueless free object in a videogame. Some men are so desparate for female attention, or just want to look like the big hero, or just like showing off to women, or whatever their reason is... that they'll actually give away free REAL-WORLD stuff to someone that they think is a woman. Free computer hardware, free books, free CDs full of pirated software because "oh, my internet connection just isn't as fast as yours tee hee".
These men will pay the postage, spend the time mailing things out, often even going to a local store to buy said items - all for nothing in return. And they'll do it again and again, with zero actual proof that said "woman" is so. No picture, no voice chat, just some text on their screen or an avatar in a video game.
Some will even travel halfway across the continent just for a slight chance of meeting said "woman".
I could have written a PhD thesis on this subject if only we had been rigorous with our testing methods.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I think, if not quite that straightforward, there is an element of truth at a certain level in that, perhaps usually at a subconscious level.
Conscience, compassion, and various other traits give you overriding reasons to -not- want to, which you're not gonna feel for computer characters as you are with real women, leaving only the parts that do like the idea.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Controlling women? Hmmm..as the article says:
Female for teh Win!
(Study Claims Men Play Female Avatars FTW! - who thinks up these stories?)
I was playing an old Zork type game. And came up on a crypto puzzle. This paticular game permitted players to take a male or female role in the game.
I don't really care for crypto puzzles. So I saved and restarted the game in the female role. Ran through the previously solved puzzles. And found what I hoped for; same crypto puzzle just slightly different enough to make the substitutions easy to pick out.
Restored my old game, re-decrypted the cipher and continued on my way.
... and she's easy on the eyes. :-)
:-)
Back when I played D2 on-line, I preferred being the Amazon because it gave me more options for Arrow skills and magik to support arrow skills. I dislike "up close and personal" combat, and I don't want to deplete mana casting missile spells all the time. It's as simple as that.
And she was easy on the eyes.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
It just means that the Horde women are cow spankin' fugly!
When I'm trolling the hardcore christian channels (eg: #prosapologian @ irc.starlink-irc.org) I find that, as a guy, I'm out the door pretty fast. They're quite hot to boot the polite male unbeliever. But as a "19 yr old girly" everybody wants to be my wise and tolerant best friend. The christians are the worst too. I mean, they are SUCH slaves to their dicks. The have no immunity whatsoever. Same with the muslims and jews. The buddhists, otoh, are pretty savvy cats. They don't fall for it so easily.
Did anyone else read "Men PAY female avatars to 'win'"???
The thing is that most MMORPG players are still in 4th grade :-)
I guess people view these games somewhat differently. I used to always play RPGs (single player) with female characters, not for some odd roleplaying value, but because the games are just mildly interactive story telling devices, so it becomes an extension of the "ass-kicking babes" genre that us geeks are so fond of.
Stopped doing that in any games that involve voice chat, simply because I'd feel really stupid. Don't think there's anything wrong with playing a character that's a different gender than you (isn't that the whole point of roleplaying?), but with voice it's just kinda silly.
sic transit gloria mundi
I recall reading an interview of the developers of Tomb Raider. Originally the protagonist was going to be male, but they got tired of staring at a guy's butt all day (I'm serious, that was their reason!).
I've always identified with Laura Croft because, as a fat man, I too have large breasts.
If the article is correct that 60% of the men who cross-play do so to get free stuff or to ogle their pretty avatar, what about the other 40%? That's a huge percentage, given how vanishingly small the trans community is as a fraction of the total population....
...(except for occasionally wearing the underwear
which, AS WE HAVE DISCUSSED, is PURELY a comfort thing!)
What do you mean, I don't have to wear them to play Might and Magic? C'mon let's go and rack up some hitpoints! And quit staring! Play from your own basement!
So in RL, I'm a big, manly man. 6ft, 200lbs, broad shoulders, beard, the works. I'm the kind of guy who gets in conversations with bikers and marines because they feel we have a lot in common. I admire people who are cute, but for me, being cute is unattainable. Playing a female avatar is really the closest thing I can get, and I suppose that's why I've played female charaters since Q3. :)
I have to admit, sometimes it comes in handy. Now, I could give a rat's ass about getting free loot (I make my own, thank you very much) but it is true that people will tend to protect female avatars better, heal them preferentially, ect. Since I play COH as a blaster, I *need* to be protected, and healed preferentially! If being a cute girl helps people remember that, then it's all good
This is going to sound crass, but shouldn't there be more girl-on-girl action in video games? I'm not being a troll. We all know the demographics for most gamers, excepting peculiar markets like MMOs and The Sims. From college to work to life in general, guys make up the lion's share of gamers. I agree with the sentiment expressed above as to why I play girls in video games: I like to look at a cute female more than I like to imagine myself as some great hero; this is especially true if I have to look at the avatar all the time. With that in mind, I know I never pursued the options available to me for romance when playing my female characters in Baldur's Gate 2 or Jade Empire. (I might have at least considered it if Anomen hadn't been such a ridiculously worthless character, though.) Now, had I been able to pursue some steamy paladin-on-drow lesbian action, I probably would have been more interested. I don't think I'm alone.
I suppose such a design decision would pander to the most salacious traits of the male gaming demographic, and that might cause an uproar, particularly in post-Hot Coffee America, but it's not like the modern video game market appeals to the noblest instincts of humans anyway. If I can pound a control pad to hammer my wicked chained spikes into a minotaur's throat in God of War, I really don't see why I shouldn't be able to reenact a scene from Lez Be Asians 2 (or 3) in Jade Empire.
I'm funny. If you come see me perform, I will make you laugh.
I haven't played any MMORPGs, but how does playing with a female avatar "gain an advantage in game play"?
I am the maverick of Slashdot
So does this mean someone is going to give me 800g for my epic mount?
hear, hear.
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
HOLY SHIT! Men and women play female avatars to win! This is revolutionary.
I've seen enough sultry, big-breasted vampires/catgirls/emo-tragics with whips in MMOs to know whether it's a guy or a girl behind the character, most of the time they're whoring for something. Pity, cyber, attention, in-game currency, items, spots on teams... there's always a crowd of young, sex-starved males looking to give them all of the above because there's a cute girl avatar that'll talk to them about boobies.
...women getting preferential treatment, at least online.
Men will always buy women gifts or give them gifts in video games. At least in this case, men have a counter weapon: the ability to send out drones (their avatars) that look like women, and take advantage of the system, and inevitably achieve a tragedy of the commons effect in which too many advantage-seekers spoil the fun and inevitably exhaust men's desire (via mistrust; "are you REALLY female?") to coddle women players.
Either that, or men will continue to coddle female players and more men will take advantage of that into perpetuity.
So this means that this culture will eat its own tail into extinction or will feed some resources to the side of the tracks that doesn't get coddled - men.
The ants will never stop raiding the picnic, or the picnic will go away.
Seeing as the coddling of women is an ingrained genetic trait in men and women, I foresee the ants raiding the picnic being the new reality.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
In nethack females who polymorph into egg laying creaturs can lay eggs. Males can't.
That is a big enough advantage to make men play females in nethack.
Ascii artist &
Anyone stopped to consider that this isn't about "advantages", "free stuff", or "autogynephillia"... but mostly all of them, and including perhaps MOST importantly... CONTROL. Would you rather site around CONTROLLING a dude, or a cute chick? Hm... let me think about that one. Duh. Virtualized Dom/Sub relationships realized on the lightest least fetishy level... or perhaps the most... where another person simply isn't involved, and the dom is in the drivers seat. We all know Second Life has a red light district. Ten to one, guys aren't looking to reproduce the same uncertainty in the virtual world that there is in life, that they're going to see something twisted or just suggestive happen. They can do it themselves and chuckle abou tit. Um. "About it."
In most games, gender doesn't affect your stats. On the other hand, it sometimes affects what classes you can be and armors you can wear. Typically, there are more things restricted to females than restricted to males. I suppose the game developers don't want to appear sexist, so they don't make females weaker (like putting a male-only restriction on super heavy armor), but they do tend to include dress-type armors and other female-only equipment (probably more for asthetic reasons and visual diversity). In Chrono Cross, for example, a "child-sized" female character (2/~40) can wear any armor in the game. In Shadowbane there is only one male restricted class, but two female restricted classes and a few female restricted armors. So by using a female character you usually have a slightly better selection of equipment. Plus they're more interesting to stare at for hours on end.
Step 1) Assume all players are male until you hear them on Teamspeak/Ventrilo. ...
Step 2)
Step 3) Profit!
Agreed (for the most part); I too am female, and my WoW-mains are also. I've always been somewhat bemused by the whole "girls get free stuff" line because, hell, I never have. Interestingly, when I'm grouping with people I don't know personally I usually find myself being referred to as 'he'; even after I correct people they often still don't believe me. I've got no idea what people think when I'm playing my male characters and I start talking about my boyfriend (or worse, partner).
Conversley, my boyfriend plays a female toon and flirts it up whenever he thinks he can get away with it. We had a few people in our raid almost in tears once because they were so confused as to his gender (people started refering to him as 's/he' and 'his/her'). He's also humilliated several of the resident server tools by playing the 'flirting bimbo' card (for loot, raid spots, gold, anything). Said tools have only later found out they've been had by talking to one of the people in our guild. Often it's me. I hear nothing breaks a gamer's spirt more than hearing, "Oh, 'her'? Yeah, 'she's' my IRL boyfriend."
Perhaps this should be a warning for all you, er, 'hopeful' male gamers out there.
I'm a guy in RL, but most of my characters in World of Warcraft, including my main (a level 60 mage), are female. It started because I wanted to play a mage, and the model of the human female in WoW is far more fitting to a mage than the male is. I wanted my character to look like a mage.
/flirt (which I usually respond to with a /blush).
I haven't seen much of the "free stuff" the article talks about. It's not why I continue to play females. I play females because I find it to be more engaging for me to be a woman, especially since I play the game to step away from the Real World.
Without trying to hide my gender, a lot of people have thought that I was, in fact, female IRL. My main is on a PvP realm, so I don't do any role playing with her. I guess I just came across as feminine. I surprised a number of people when I started talking in Ventrillo when my guild started raiding Molten Core, even though I had, on a few occasions, stated straight out in guild chat that I was a guy IRL. I never intentionally tried to mislead people, just some people were mistaken.
There might be some of what the article states in regards to female characters getting free stuff, but, in WoW on a PvP realm, it isn't very common. At least I haven't seen it. I do have a few male characters, and they seem to get the same treatment from other players that my females do, except the females get the occasional
I recently started a female character on an RP realm, so we'll see how that goes. I already have a high level male character on that realm, so I will have some direct compare/contrast to do in a few months.
Intelligent responses welcome, flames will be met with marshmallows.
I play Cameron Dias as my 1st out Trainz Sim Driver, because I take better care of her.
Don't you think...? Or don't you?
the reason men play female avatars is because they want a character that is appealing to them to look at.
the reason women don't play male avatars is because women want a character that they can associate with.
there. i answered it for you. that wasn't so difficult, and it didn't even require a psychological degree for me to come up with that.
(disclaimer: I have not read the article in its entirety yet, so if it states the same thing, then please forgive me for coming to the same conclusion on my own.)
Anonymous idiot wrote:
Title: "This is why I treat all players in the game as men"
Then later: "So, I really don't give a crap about someone's gender in game"
If you really didn't care what someone's gender in the game was, you would have
no need to treat all players "as men" (whatever that means).
In the context of this discussion, the comment was made about women players, perhaps, having some advantage in being treated "better", as in, perhaps, getting more gifts.
Comparatively, you treat men "worse" than you would women -- so when you say you treat all players as men, that simply means you are a jerk to all players. Why does this not suprise me?
Or, to say it another way, you didn't say "I treat all players as women", or I treat all players as "people"....or whatever. Obviously sex & gender mean a great deal to you, as you feel a *need* to label your "attention" as "male-centric". If you really didn't care about someone's gender in the game, you wouldn't feel a need to treat them all like "men". Whether you are gay, and put men on a pedastal, or het (and, apparently view all men as competitors), you still have a distinct difference as to how men and women should be treated. You choose to use your "male treatment" as the normal standard.
A pox on you!
Conversely -- in online forums and such, I'm more likely to choose a neutral pseudonym so I don't get treated condescendingly by people like you who feel a need to treat
women like men just to not be "taken advantage of"... Have you ever thought of
being the same (i.e. "nice, but not a doormat") to all people?
-l
Because i can.
In the game "Planetside", you can choose a male or female avatar. The "better" players almost always choose a female avatar because for some reason, the developers skipped out on some of the animation for female avatars. What this means is that by quickly pressing A + D while in a fight, a player with a female avatar will warp around on their enemies screen, and some frames of animation will be missing and so it is incredibly difficult to hit said players with a non-splash weapon.
I play Entropia Universe which ties it's Game economy to the Real World Economy. As such, you are always looking for a way to make you money last longer.
In the game, female items cost less. Not sure why. Maybe it's because there is lees demand for the items. Maybe it's the way the Game's Company (MINDARK) tries to attract female players. But items like clothes and armor which are made specifically for each gender will cost more for male versions than female. For this reason, many players have made second avatars as female characters and started them from scratch.
Old adage: this is the internet, where men are men, women are men and 16-yo girls are FBI agents.
I think the model of "giving away free stuff to predominately female toons" has died down quite a bit in MMOs.
First of all, it's no big secret that a lot of female toons are played by guys. And it's not just because the guys are looking for free loot. As a guy, I get tired of looking at a guy's butt on my screen all the time. For some games, it is just more fun to look at a chick's butt. Sorry! That, and the fact that almost all games have the male/female have the same stats, and it makes no difference. Add in the fact that the newer graphic models for female toons in most games come in super skimpy clothing (NE from Lineage II, anyone?) and that 75% of PCs are that female model, you know they are all guys.
Second, with the advent of the bazaar/auction house/broker, many of the items in games are no longer considered "give aways". You have a much easier way of generating much needed cash by selling items anon and offline than you do running around looking for some supposed chick to give an item away to.
Back in the early days of EQ, one female toon could outfit an entire guild by just batting her eyes at various male toons. Today, it just doesn't happen that much.
Now please excuse me. I have this hot looking chick's butt in spandex waiting for me to look at as I beat up bad guys in CoH/V! lol
Can I interest you in the Mansiere (tm)?
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Did I warp back in time? This is incredibly out of date. Yeah, guys have female avatars. The way people are going on about not wanting to be on ventrillo because they find out all the female avatars are guys...I mean, come on. What is wrong with you guys? I assume everyone is male unless otherwise stated. And who cares if they are or are not girls? I am there to play the game, not develop a romantic relationship. Some people really need to get out more.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Some games actually changes stats according to your gender.
Some online fighting games offer vastly different move sets for female characters (ex.: DOA).
Some RPGs provide less in certain stats and more in others for female characters than males (ex.: Phantasy Star Online, more in agility and more in magic for hunter characters as an example).
People tend to be more "polite" towards female character. That is until they figure-out the girl is a man, then the opposite comes.
Anyway, with the fact that more and more online games require a microphone for chat (PCs are lagging behind consoles on that element), males trying to pass as girls will get rarer and rarer.
This is par for the course with these guys.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
The implication is that he treats everyone the same way. Whether he sees them as men or sees them as women, he treats everyone the same way.
He's not an attorney like you.
Wishing a pox on someone over some split hairs is more of a sign of a deranged mind than anything he said.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
IRC: Where the guys are guys, the women are guys and the 14 year old girls are FBI agents.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
AOL. I know a couple of real life women who play World of Warcraft and they universally agree that the men are just uninteresting to look at. None of them play a male character either. Perhaps game companies should get some women designing the male toons so the situation is a bit more balanced.
Then again, perhaps they shouldn't make lvl 60 priests wear dresses. That would probably increase the amount of males in that particular class a bit. (I'm not talking about robes here, they look like actual dresses, even on males)
I actually kind of agree with the idea that women get more free stuff then men do in MMORPG's, since i have seen it first hand. I don't play WoW, but i am an avid runescpae player. For some reason, when i was in the town every new player spawns from, i heard someone(correction: read the words)ask for help. This person had a name that implied she was female. I don't know why, but i helped her, and for the record,i have never helped anyone else, other than the odd direction to varrock or two. And, curiously enough, my avatar name is manfighter22. I don't know why it is, since i am a male, but maybe it was because i was freaking tired of typing in names and finding out someone else had taken it already. But i know from experience that some online characters try to get free stuff, and now a lot of the time its people saying they are teenage girls. don't ask me why, i only play the game, and kill the odd paserby or two, or three, or four if none of them are mages.
To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were capable of staying awake long enough.
The implication is that he treats everyone the same way. Whether he sees them as men or sees them as women, he treats everyone the same way.
Yes, so? He treats everyone as "men". Meaning he treats men differently than he would women. If he'd said he treated everyone as "people", wouldn't have been an issue.
If he said "I treat everyone like women", in the game would you have interpreted that to mean he treats everyone like men? Hardly....because he admits to holding a bias in treating men and women differently.
The problem with most men, is they don't realize that "man" != "Human". It's so comical to watch the masculine dominated medical industry act so "shocked" when they discover that many drugs, treatments, therapies, etc, work very differently in women than in men.
Conditions like "fibromyagia" and "chronic fatigue syndrome" were thought to be all in women's heads -- because cases with men were unheard of. Not until advances in medical science allowed men to "see that something was wrong" were they acknowledged as "real diseases". Medical texts for "reasonable and conservative" treatment use men as the "gold standard" for recovery and working despite chronic or severe pain. Psychosomatic or, the new speak term, "somatically focused", for decades and on into today, seems to be the first lame excuse offered for why the male-medical establishment has for not being able to find a cause for someone's chronic pain. And when women complain, they are labeled "hysterical" -- a word deriving it's meaning from the Greek for "uterus" as it was thought to be caused by women's reproductive organs --- one of the earliest forms of male medical stupidity.
I've seen other research done on opioids and pain -- and in some trials with more common narcotics, men got significantly better pain relief. Another opioid type, (?Kappa, it's been several years), was thought to be useless for pain relief because initially it was only tested on men. When it was tested on women it worked better than motrin (which works better in men than in women).
Perpetuating the myth that "treating everyone one like men" "is the same as saying "treating everyone like people" is just plain ridiculous. I think it is very saddening to know how many men don't know the difference.
As far as my being an attorney. Ha! Hardly...though I'm exposed to them, and it's amazing how pliable and subjective the facts and "reality" are in the hands of a capable attorney. Truth and reality, really, don't enter the picture. It's really about being a fast talking saleman who knows the minutia of the law who can spin a good story and weave in enough supporting facts to create whatever impression they want to leave. Think about the RIAA suing innocent people when you think about attorneys. They can sue you for tying your shoes wrong, and it will cost you more to defend yourself than if you just pay them to go away.
But as far as my "wishing" a pox on someone...."wishing" doesn't enter into it.
You may think this is just splitting hairs, but if you've been on the receiving end of some lame masculine expectations that boil down to you just not being "man" enough for a job (not that it would every be phrased so clearly), you'd probably feel it was a bit more than a split hair.
Would you prefer a "blessing" instead of a "pox"? How about "May you reap what you sow"....:-)
-l